The Horsemen

"There is a kind of music that sounds like it has nothing to do with any given time or place. The songs sound like they weren´t actually put together by people, but rather found lying about in a field somewhere. It doesn´t belong to any specific genre, and yet it sounds strangely classical and traditional. I thought this kind of music wasn´t made anymore. Then I heard The Horsemen.
The way I see it, almost all bands and artists that operate in some kind of older tradition end up either sounding like they´re flirting with a genre or time period, (like a lot of the new wave of independent country and blues bands), or like they just walked through a time portal from some remote past, (like Nick Cave or Will Oldham). Then of course there are the true traditionalists, who simply try to play things the way it was always played, and end up more or less standing outside the field of contemporary music.
The Horsemen are neither of these; they manage to sound timeless and genreless without trying, like Neil Young, Nick Drake, The Band or Tom Waits, something I find to be very unusual in today´s music. I met up with the band´s founder, singer and songwriter Christian Lidman to find out where this rare sound comes from.
The Horsemen has always revolved around Christian on vocals, guitar and harmonica, who writes the songs, which the band then arrange and develop together. In the lineup today, there´s Tomas Lundgren on bass, Jonatan Carlsson on drums, Olle Nyman on backing vocals, Johan Börlin on electric guitar and Samuel Lundström on violin and accordion. The lineup has shifted since the beginning of the band, around 2000, and the sound has naturally differed a little depending on the setting and the playing style of the members, but It´s always been a pretty low-key affair.
They´ve come together in a random kind of way, not really being childhood friends or anything, but instead finding each other in various places, united by their interest in music. The band members are also mostly into music that was made the "old" way, like country, folk, blues, soul and jazz. As Christian puts it: "You set a guy up with a microphone, and he just plays, and there´s like a whole world in there". The way the band records nowadays is also as live as possible, to capture that feeling.
Is The Horsemen a rural band, as the name suggests? I put it to Christian that the band´s soft, soulful sound might have something to do with their surroundings. He agrees there might be a connection. "The place where I grew up (Kyrkbyn, Luleå, far north...) is a quiet little place with a lot of old houses. I suppose it puts you in a certain kind of mood, influences the way you look at things and the theme of your music or lyrics." You might also be forgiven for thinking that Horsemen are a bunch of old men, considering their sound, but Christian is "only" 26 and the youngest member is 20. "When I was young I was into hardcore and stuff like that, and I thought country was old folk´s music, really boring. But nowadays I can relate better to slow, sad, romantic music. I don´t know why, it´s just the kind of music that speaks to me."
This kind of music is also best appreciated in a more intimate setting. The Horsemen is not a band for stadiums and huge stages. So far it´s been mostly gigs in the north of Sweden, and sometimes in rather odd places, like a department store, where they played surrounded by underwear and advertisement, to the surprise of shopping customers. Coffeeshops, bars and poetry nights are more common and logical settings than big, hairy rock festivals. "I saw this really good jazz combo a while ago in this little half-deserted pub." says Christian. "It was lovely. I don´t really get the appeal of, say, Rolling Stones playing these monster stadiums where they´re hundreds of meters apart from each other, running around....I think even they would sound better on a smaller stage." .
We both bemoan the lack of live opportunities in Sweden these days, and the fact that live music today has to come with a spectacle. Few seem interested in having just a nice, not necessarily well-known band of MUSICIANS playing original music in their establishment, opting instead for a pair of speakers blasting the latest chart hits. Yet being able to play often in front of people is what fosters good musicianship, or at least a different kind than the one you get from hacking away in a rehearsal room or on your own. And unless you´re ready to put on on a baseball cap, sitting down on a barstool and playing crap cover versions of "Sweet Home Alabama" or whatever on acoustic guitar, people just don´t seem interested.
The Horsemen possess such qualities however, that I´d be very surprised if they didn´t get through to a larger audience eventually, despite the current live music climate. Christians dark, soft but passionate voice and excellent lyrics, that sort of creep up on you quietly the more you listen to them, is the center around which the band weaves a wonderful musical tapestry. Their exact but loose playing perfectly fits the slow tempo in their songs. It took me a couple of listens to realize how together they sound and how good musicians they all are, since there´s no showboating or exhibitionism in their playing.
The sparse arrangements are topped off with Olle Nyman´s lovely backing vocals and Samuel Lundströms beautifully weeping country violin. Samuel picked up his violin after not playing since childhood, and is now studying and playing Swedish folk music. Several of the members have had some sort of traditional musical training. Johan is something of a guitar wonderkid, known for his skills since the age of 12 or so. Jonathan is studying to become a music teacher. Thomas, the bass player, is described by Christian as a "camp fire guitarist" and is the one who´s been musically involved with Christian the longest.
It also turns out that both Christian and Olle are drummers. Christian was even the singing drummer (!) in a band some years back. "We played Johnny Thunders covers and our own punk rock songs...it was fun!" Paradoxically, he claims during the interview that drummers are always hard to find. With three drummers in the same band? Hmm.... We talk about how it would be nice for the band to have a regular piano and organ player. Add a pedal steel guitar player and you have a full country setting. I can hardly imagine how lovely that would sound.
So, is there a budding scene for this kind of music up north? Not really, it seems. At least not to Christian´s knowledge. The upSweden band Merry Pranksters might be the closest thing, but their sound is different, more lively and "pop". Neither does Christian feel any great affinity with the middle-aged men, presumably in leather vests, playing 12-bar boogie, which my prejudice about northern Sweden tells me should be all over the place. He confirms that they exist, though. The Horsemen´s approach to "roots music" is quite different from theirs, thank god. Unlike the "traditional" blues and country bands, Horsemen simply write songs, and build from their collective taste. There´s no plan that the music should sound like this forever, and they do not consciously try to sound like anything in particular. Christian is happy when I call their music timeless. "I don´t want people to listen to my music in 20 year´s time and go 'yeah, that sound was really hip back then'. I like music that doesn´t sound like it comes from any particular time or place."
Being six persons with different wills, they naturally do not always agree on everything, but there is a general sense that the direction they have now is a good one, that they like each other and get along well, which is important, since Christian hopes to play live a lot. Having had a period a while ago with lots of gigs, they´ve developed a taste for that kind of life. This despite a horror story about a trip to the south of Sweden, which involved getting lost for hours in Stockholm, an incredibly delayed gig where nothing worked, drunkenness on stage, falling asleep behind the wheel and ending up in a ditch, running over a deer, the car almost catching fire etc. Perhaps all the bad things happened on that trip, and everything will come up roses from now on? Let´s hope so, and also that a lot more people get to know these Horsemen in the future."
/ upSweden.com